There’s been a lot of talk about the ketogenic diet recently—proponents say that minimizing the carbohydrates you eat and ingesting lots of fat can train your body to burn fat more effectively. It’s meant to help you both lose weight and keep your energy levels constant. The diet was first studied and used in patients with epilepsy, who suffered fewer seizures when their bodies were in a state of ketosis. Because seizures originate in the brain, this discovery showed researchers that a ketogenic diet can definitely affect the way the brain works. Brain hackers naturally started experimenting with diets to enhance their cognitive abilities, and now a company called HVMN even sells ketone esters in a bottle; to achieve these compounds naturally, you’d have to avoid bread and cake. Here are 6 ways exercise makes your brain better.

Took pill 12:11 PM. I am not certain. While I do get some things accomplished (a fair amount of work on the Silk Road article and its submission to places), I also have some difficulty reading through a fiction book (Sum) and I seem kind of twitchy and constantly shifting windows. I am weakly inclined to think this is Adderall (say, 60%). It’s not my normal feeling. Next morning - it was Adderall.

Disclosure of Material connection: Some of the links in the post above are "associate sales links." This means if you can click on the link and purchase an item, we will receive a commission. Regardless, we only recommend products or services which we use personally and/or believe will add value to our readers. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials."
Huperzine A: This compound is found in a firmoss plant called Huperzia serrata. Studies conducted on Huperzine A so far have not used the best methodology, so scientists are still not sure how beneficial this compound is for preventing or treating Alzheimer’s disease. But one review of studies on Huperzine A concluded that the compound “appears to have beneficial effects on improvement of cognitive function, daily living activity, and global clinical assessment in participants with Alzheimer’s disease.”
At small effects like d=0.07, a nontrivial chance of negative effects, and an unknown level of placebo effects (this was non-blinded, which could account for any residual effects), this strongly implies that LLLT is not doing anything for me worth bothering with. I was pretty skeptical of LLLT in the first place, and if 167 days can’t turn up anything noticeable, I don’t think I’ll be continuing with LLLT usage and will be giving away my LED set. (Should any experimental studies of LLLT for cognitive enhancement in healthy people surface with large quantitative effects - as opposed to a handful of qualitative case studies about brain-damaged people - and I decide to give LLLT another try, I can always just buy another set of LEDs: it’s only ~$15, after all.)
The U. S. nootropics industry was valued at more than $1.3 billion in 2015 and is projected to reach $6 billion by 2024. This growth is due in part to slick marketing from biohacking “experts” such as Dave Asprey (founder of Bulletproof) and Josiah Zayner, Ph.D. (CEO of the Odin), who’ve built big social-media and podcast followings as well as customer bases. At the grassroots level, there are meetups across the country like the one at Idea Coffee, plus a vibrant online community.
The soft gels are very small; one needs to be a bit careful - Vitamin D is fat-soluble and overdose starts in the range of 70,000 IU36, so it would take at least 14 pills, and it’s unclear where problems start with chronic use. Vitamin D, like many supplements, follows a U-shaped response curve (see also Melamed et al 2008 and Durup et al 2012) - too much can be quite as bad as too little. Too little, though, is likely very bad. The previously cited studies with high acute doses worked out to <1,000 IU a day, so they may reassure us about the risks of a large acute dose but not tell us much about smaller chronic doses; the mortality increases due to too-high blood levels begin at ~140nmol/l and reading anecdotes online suggest that 5k IU daily doses tend to put people well below that (around 70-100nmol/l). I probably should get a blood test to be sure, but I have something of a needle phobia.
Creatine is a substance that’s produced in the human body. It is initially produced in the kidneys, and the process is completed in the liver. It is then stored in the brain tissues and muscles, to support the energy demands of a human body. Athletes and bodybuilders take creatine supplements for relieving fatigue and increasing the recovery of the muscle tissues that are affected by vigorous physical activities. Apart from helping the tissues to recover faster, creatine also helps in enhancing the mental functions in sleep-deprived adults and it also improves the performance of difficult cognitive tasks.
Compared with those reporting no use, subjects drinking >4 cups/day of decaffeinated coffee were at increased risk of RA [rheumatoid arthritis] (RR 2.58, 95% CI 1.63-4.06). In contrast, women consuming >3 cups/day of tea displayed a decreased risk of RA (RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.16-0.97) compared with women who never drank tea. Caffeinated coffee and daily caffeine intake were not associated with the development of RA.
-Raw cacao is rich in theobromine, a powerful antioxidant known to support cellular aging and reduce the risk of heart disease. Its effects are similar to those of caffeine, as they both are vasodilators and improve blood flow to the brain [except cacao won’t give you jitters]...You can use raw cacao to make cacao tea, or in your smoothies. Dark chocolate with cocoa content of 80% or higher is also rich in theobromine and natural antioxidants. Besides, chocolate makes you happy. I have a small piece of high-quality dark chocolate, like 85% or 90% dark, every day.
Since my experiment had a number of flaws (non-blind, varying doses at varying times of day), I wound up doing a second better experiment using blind standardized smaller doses in the morning. The negative effect was much smaller, but there was still no mood/productivity benefit. Having used up my first batch of potassium citrate in these 2 experiments, I will not be ordering again since it clearly doesn’t work for me.
However, as a result of the efficacy of this type of stacking, the supplement world is saturated with brain-boosting blends, and it can be difficult to cut through the confusion and figure out what really works and what could be a waste of time and money, or downright dangerous. The fact is, when creating your own stack, you must carefully think about your specific needs and goals. For example, if you want to reduce anxiety and depression, but don’t necessarily care to enhance your cognitive performance or get through a day of work in a sleep-deprived state, you could just stick to a single nootropic that increases dopamine levels, such as Mucuna pruriens or tryptophan. Or if you wanted to reduce anxiety and depression while simultaneously improving your memory because you’re studying for a school or work exam, you could add Bacopa monnieri to the mucuna or tryptophan. Then, let’s say you want long-term cognitive performance to the mix that lasts an entire day: in this case, you’d add a racetam, and to avoid an end of day crash, a touch of choline or DHA. It’s a bit like cooking in the kitchen, isn’t it?
According to Dr. Cohen, there’s no incentive for these companies to conduct trials to determine if their products actually do anything, so few of them do. In fact, he says he isn’t aware of any studies on nootropics that meet the research gold standard: double-blind, placebo-controlled, comparing meaningful numbers of healthy adults (not laboratory mice or rats) in terms of relevant measures of cognitive enhancement.

She says purified water is bad because essential minerals are missing. She makes the ludicrous claim that purified water is “entirely incapable of hydrating you”! As sources of water she recommends coconut water and aloe vera juice, but she doesn’t provide any evidence that they have significantly beneficial effects compared to plain old tap water. She says energy drinks are not good for you because they are “chockful of manufactured minerals and salts.” Again, no references.

The chemicals he takes, dubbed nootropics from the Greek “noos” for “mind”, are intended to safely improve cognitive functioning. They must not be harmful, have significant side-effects or be addictive. That means well-known “smart drugs” such as the prescription-only stimulants Adderall and Ritalin, popular with swotting university students, are out. What’s left under the nootropic umbrella is a dizzying array of over-the-counter supplements, prescription drugs and unclassified research chemicals, some of which are being trialled in older people with fading cognition.

Feeling behind, I resolved to take some armodafinil the next morning, which I did - but in my hurry I failed to recall that 200mg armodafinil was probably too much to take during the day, with its long half life. As a result, I felt irritated and not that great during the day (possibly aggravated by some caffeine - I wish some studies would be done on the possible interaction of modafinil and caffeine so I knew if I was imagining it or not). Certainly not what I had been hoping for. I went to bed after midnight (half an hour later than usual), and suffered severe insomnia. The time wasn’t entirely wasted as I wrote a short story and figured out how to make nicotine gum placebos during the hours in the dark, but I could have done without the experience. All metrics omitted because it was a day usage.

These little chemicals prompt the immune system to kick in and fight back against the stress through inflammation, as though stress is an infection. While inflammation helps protect us against illnesses and repairs the body when you do something like cut yourself, chronic inflammation is a different animal. It’s been linked to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, anxiety, high blood pressure and more. (2)
The soft gels are very small; one needs to be a bit careful - Vitamin D is fat-soluble and overdose starts in the range of 70,000 IU36, so it would take at least 14 pills, and it’s unclear where problems start with chronic use. Vitamin D, like many supplements, follows a U-shaped response curve (see also Melamed et al 2008 and Durup et al 2012) - too much can be quite as bad as too little. Too little, though, is likely very bad. The previously cited studies with high acute doses worked out to <1,000 IU a day, so they may reassure us about the risks of a large acute dose but not tell us much about smaller chronic doses; the mortality increases due to too-high blood levels begin at ~140nmol/l and reading anecdotes online suggest that 5k IU daily doses tend to put people well below that (around 70-100nmol/l). I probably should get a blood test to be sure, but I have something of a needle phobia.
For this batch, I tried out NOW Foods Magnesium Citrate Powder ($7 for 227g); the powder was still a bit sticky but much easier to work with than the Solgar pills, and the 227g made 249 gel capsule pills. The package estimates 119 serving of 315mg elemental magnesium, so a ratio of 0.315g magnesium for 1.9g magnesium citrate, implying that each gel cap pill then contains 0.152g magnesium (\frac{(119\times315)}{249}=150) and since I want a total dose of 0.8g, I need 5 of the gel cap pills a day or 35 per block.
Please take care when you’re out there on the web or in the world shopping for something to help that in progress novel or craft project of yours along. Take all care when planning on taking anything, be it a nootropic, smart drug, or brain enhancer, and do your research before buying. Make sure your so-called ‘best brain pill’ really is the best brain pill for you.

[…] The 7 Best Brain Boosting Supplements | Live in the Now … – … much research has indicated that certain supplements can help sustain and promote excellent brain function as we age. The supplements recommended by the Alzheimer’s Prevention and … Take adequate supplements for brain and help your kids to perform well in their tests by enhancing … […]

It would be like saying: 'No, you can't use a cell phone. It might increase productivity!'" If we eventually decide that neuroenhancers work, and are basically safe, will we one day enforce their use? Lawmakers might compel certain workers - A&E doctors, air-traffic controllers - to take them. (Indeed, the US Air Force already makes modafinil available to pilots embarking on long missions.) For the rest of us, the pressure will be subtler - that queasy feeling I get when I remember that my younger colleague is taking Provigil to meet deadlines. All this may be leading to a kind of society I'm not sure I want to live in: a society where we're even more overworked and driven by technology than we already are, and where we have to take drugs to keep up; a society where we give children academic steroids along with their daily vitamins.
If you’re a coffee or tea drinker, keep sipping: Caffeine may help protect against age-related cognitive decline. “Studies have indicated that caffeine—for example, roughly 500 milligrams daily, the equivalent of about five cups of coffee—may help stave off memory issues in humans,” says Bruce Citron, PhD, a neuroscientist at Bay Pines VA Healthcare System and the USF Morsani College of Medicine in Florida. (Experts warn against taking caffeine supplements, which flood your body with a lot of caffeine all at once.)
Adderall, a stimulant composed of mixed amphetamine salts, is commonly prescribed for children and adults who have been given a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But in recent years Adderall and Ritalin, another stimulant, have been adopted as cognitive enhancers: drugs that high-functioning, overcommitted people take to become higher-functioning and more overcommitted. (Such use is "off label", meaning that it does not have the approval of either the drug's manufacturer or the FDA, America's Food and Drug Administration.) College campuses have become laboratories for experimentation with neuroenhancement, and Alex was an ingenious experimenter. His brother had received a diagnosis of ADHD, and in his first year as an undergraduate Alex obtained an Adderall prescription for himself by describing to a doctor symptoms that he knew were typical of the disorder. During his college years, Alex took 15mg of Adderall most evenings, usually after dinner, guaranteeing that he would maintain intense focus while losing "any ability to sleep for approximately eight to 10 hours". In his second year, he persuaded the doctor to add a 30mg "extended-release" capsule to his daily regime.
Before you try nootropics, I suggest you start with the basics: get rid of the things in your diet and life that reduce cognitive performance first. That is easiest. Then, add in energizers like Brain Octane and clean up your diet. Then, go for the herbals and the natural nootropics. Use the pharmaceuticals selectively only after you’ve figured out your basics.
We all wish success came in a pill form. That was the premise of the hour and half Adderall commercial/ thriller film ‘Limitless’ starring Bradley Cooper. In the film he popped a transparent round pill and instantly his brain power skyrocketed- anything became possible. Most of us wished that pill existed- and now it does. Donepezil is a drug that is used to treat Alzheimers, but it’s effects on normal people make Adderall and Vyvanse look like a cup of coffee.
Long story short, aging is your brain’s worst enemy. The same applies to all organs of our body, but the brain suffers the most. Both neurotransmitters and neurons are taking the blow too. As a result, the neuron communication is affected. Now, this may seem like the rocket science to you, but it’s enough to say, serotonin and dopamine are the most important neurotransmitters. Without these components, you can forget about good mood. Serotonin and dopamine levels drop at a rate of approximately 10% for every decade you add to your age.
I have a needle phobia, so injections are right out; but from the images I have found, it looks like testosterone enanthate gels using DMSO resemble other gels like Vaseline. This suggests an easy experimental procedure: spoon an appropriate dose of testosterone gel into one opaque jar, spoon some Vaseline gel into another, and pick one randomly to apply while not looking. If one gel evaporates but the other doesn’t, or they have some other difference in behavior, the procedure can be expanded to something like and then half an hour later, take a shower to remove all visible traces of the gel. Testosterone itself has a fairly short half-life of 2-4 hours, but the gel or effects might linger. (Injections apparently operate on a time-scale of weeks; I’m not clear on whether this is because the oil takes that long to be absorbed by surrounding materials or something else.) Experimental design will depend on the specifics of the obtained substance. As a controlled substance (Schedule III in the US), supplies will be hard to obtain; I may have to resort to the Silk Road.
A study published in the Journal of Environmental Healths Perspective stated that "researchers, physicians, and others poked around in the dark crevices of the gene, (are) trying to untangle the clues that suggested gene function could be altered by more than just changes in sequence." This ties in perfectly with what Dr. Lisa mentions about how our lifestyles play a crucial role in how/if we manifest a certain cognitive disfunction. Which brings us to our next question: What kind of "brain diet" can help support this lifestyle?
These pills don’t work. The reality is that MOST of these products don’t work effectively. Maybe we’re cynical, but if you simply review the published studies on memory pills, you can quickly eliminate many of the products that don’t have “the right stuff.” The active ingredients in brain and memory health pills are expensive and most companies sell a watered down version that is not effective for memory and focus. The more brands we reviewed, the more we realized that many of these marketers are slapping slick labels on low-grade ingredients.
We can read off the results from the table or graph: the nicotine days average 1.1% higher, for an effect size of 0.24; however, the 95% credible interval (equivalent of confidence interval) goes all the way from 0.93 to -0.44, so we cannot exclude 0 effect and certainly not claim confidence the effect size must be >0.1. Specifically, the analysis gives a 66% chance that the effect size is >0.1. (One might wonder if any increase is due purely to a training effect - getting better at DNB. Probably not26.)

By which I mean that simple potassium is probably the most positively mind altering supplement I’ve ever tried…About 15 minutes after consumption, it manifests as a kind of pressure in the head or temples or eyes, a clearing up of brain fog, increased focus, and the kind of energy that is not jittery but the kind that makes you feel like exercising would be the reasonable and prudent thing to do. I have done no tests, but feel smarter from this in a way that seems much stronger than piracetam or any of the conventional weak nootropics. It is not just me – I have been introducing this around my inner social circle and I’m at 7/10 people felt immediately noticeable effects. The 3 that didn’t notice much were vegetarians and less likely to have been deficient. Now that I’m not deficient, it is of course not noticeable as mind altering, but still serves to be energizing, particularly for sustained mental energy as the night goes on…Potassium chloride initially, but since bought some potassium gluconate pills… research indicates you don’t want to consume large amounts of chloride (just moderate amounts).

The third category was cognitive control - how effectively you can check yourself in circumstances where the most natural response is the wrong one. A classic test is the Stroop Task, in which people are shown the name of a colour (let's say orange) written in a different colour (let's say purple). They're asked to read the word (which is easy, because our habitual response to a word is to read it) or to name the ink colour (which is harder, because our first impulse is to say "orange"). These studies presented a more mixed picture, but overall they showed some benefit "for most normal healthy subjects" - especially for people who had inherently poorer cognitive control.
A cup of coffee before a big exam can help your brain perform at its best. That’s because caffeine improves short-term memory and speeds up reaction times, according to New Scientist. Researchers from the National Institute on Aging found that individuals who drank more caffeine had better scores on memory tests, which explains why has been linked to a lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease. It can also help prevent Parkinson’s disease and relieve headache pain. But don’t overdo it—too much caffeine can make you jumpy or irritable. Look out for the signs that you’re drinking too much coffee.

(We already saw that too much iodine could poison both adults and children, and of course too little does not help much - iodine would seem to follow a U-curve like most supplements.) The listed doses at iherb.com often are ridiculously large: 10-50mg! These are doses that seems to actually be dangerous for long-term consumption, and I believe these are doses that are designed to completely suffocate the thyroid gland and prevent it from absorbing any more iodine - which is useful as a short-term radioactive fallout prophylactic, but quite useless from a supplementation standpoint. Fortunately, there are available doses at Fitzgerald 2012’s exact dose, which is roughly the daily RDA: 0.15mg. Even the contrarian materials seem to focus on a modest doubling or tripling of the existing RDA, so the range seems relatively narrow. I’m fairly confident I won’t overshoot if I go with 0.15-1mg, so let’s call this 90%.

Often her language is not that of a scientist. She uses buzzwords like detoxification and boosting the immune system. She avoids GMOs and things that she thinks are unnatural like “manufactured” minerals and salts. She says she takes royal jelly daily for its natural antibiotic effects; she says these effects are “known, but perhaps not scientifically confirmed.” If not scientifically confirmed, how are the effects “known”? She says plants produce phytonutrients to increase their life span, and then she leaps to the conclusion that humans will derive the same benefits from eating the plants.
Gibson and Green (2002), talking about a possible link between glucose and cognition, wrote that research in the area …is based on the assumption that, since glucose is the major source of fuel for the brain, alterations in plasma levels of glucose will result in alterations in brain levels of glucose, and thus neuronal function. However, the strength of this notion lies in its common-sense plausibility, not in scientific evidence… (p. 185).
Adderall is composed of a mixture of amphetamine salts – chemical compounds that have numerous potentially positive effects, including increased concentration, awareness and alertness. Amphetamines work, in part, by causing the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasurable activities like eating. However, an amphetamine-induced release of dopamine occurs automatically – no pleasurable activity needs to occur – but a come-down feeling will likely be experienced eventually, which is associated with feelings of lethargy and mental dullness. Due to this side effect, Adderall cannot be said to be a nootropic.[12]
If all of this sounds great to you, get ready to level up your brain to game like a god with GodMode. Unless, you know, you're under 18, pregnant, potentially have any pre-existing medical conditions, are taking any prescription medications, are otherwise ingesting caffeine or taking other stimulants, or you don't want to drop $60 on gamer pills. Then, you know, don't.
Took random pill at 2:02 PM. Went to lunch half an hour afterwards, talked until 4 - more outgoing than my usual self. I continued to be pretty energetic despite not taking my caffeine+piracetam pills, and though it’s now 12:30 AM and I listened to TAM YouTube videos all day while reading, I feel pretty energetic and am reviewing Mnemosyne cards. I am pretty confident the pill today was Adderall. Hard to believe placebo effect could do this much for this long or that normal variation would account for this. I’d say 90% confidence it was Adderall. I do some more Mnemosyne, typing practice, and reading in a Montaigne book, and finally get tired and go to bed around 1:30 AM or so. I check the baggie when I wake up the next morning, and sure enough, it had been an Adderall pill. That makes me 1 for 2.

So where did the idea of Blue Monday come from? The concept of Blue Monday was originally coined by Dr Cliff Arnall in 2005 and distributed by the PR company Sky Travel. It has now become an annual event and can fall on either the third or the fourth Monday of January, using Dr Cliff Arnall’s original mathematical equation that measures a combination of factors such as weather, potential debt post-Christmas, the amount of time since Christmas, potential failure of New Year resolutions and motivation levels, that apparently conspire to make the date the gloomiest of the year.

Factor analysis. The strategy: read in the data, drop unnecessary data, impute missing variables (data is too heterogeneous and collected starting at varying intervals to be clean), estimate how many factors would fit best, factor analyze, pick the ones which look like they match best my ideas of what productive is, extract per-day estimates, and finally regress LLLT usage on the selected factors to look for increases.
I took 1.5mg of melatonin, and went to bed at ~1:30AM; I woke up around 6:30, took a modafinil pill/200mg, and felt pretty reasonable. By noon my mind started to feel a bit fuzzy, and lunch didn’t make much of it go away. I’ve been looking at studies, and users seem to degrade after 30 hours; I started on mid-Thursday, so call that 10 hours, then 24 (Friday), 24 (Saturday), and 14 (Sunday), totaling 72hrs with <20hrs sleep; this might be equivalent to 52hrs with no sleep, and Wikipedia writes:

(As I was doing this, I reflected how modafinil is such a pure example of the money-time tradeoff. It’s not that you pay someone else to do something for you, which necessarily they will do in a way different from you; nor is it that you have exchanged money to free yourself of a burden of some future time-investment; nor have you paid money for a speculative return of time later in life like with many medical expenses or supplements. Rather, you have paid for 8 hours today of your own time.)

"More and more of our young people are using these drugs to help them work. They've got their laptop, their iPhone, and their Adderall. This rising generation of workers and leaders may have a subtly different style of thinking and working, because they're using these drugs or because they learned to work using these drugs, so that even if you take the drugs away they'll still have a certain approach. I'm a little concerned that we could be raising a generation of very focused accountants."
New psychiatric drugs have a way of creating markets for themselves. Disorders often become widely diagnosed after drugs come along that can alter a set of suboptimal behaviours. In this way Ritalin and Adderall helped make ADHD a household name, and advertisements for antidepressants have helped define shyness as a malady. If there's a pill that can clear up the wavering focus of sleep-deprived youth or mitigate the tip-of-the-tongue experience of middle age, then those rather ordinary states may come to be seen as syndromes.
A Romanian psychologist and chemist named Corneliu Giurgea started using the word nootropic in the 1970s to refer to substances that improve brain function, but humans have always gravitated toward foods and chemicals that make us feel sharper, quicker, happier, and more content. Our brains use about 20 percent of our energy when our bodies are at rest (compared with 8 percent for apes), according to National Geographic, so our thinking ability is directly affected by the calories we’re taking in as well as by the nutrients in the foods we eat. Here are the nootropics we don’t even realize we’re using, and an expert take on how they work.
I have personally found that with respect to the NOOTROPIC effect(s) of all the RACETAMS, whilst I have experienced improvements in concentration and working capacity / productivity, I have never experienced a noticeable ongoing improvement in memory. COLURACETAM is the only RACETAM that I have taken wherein I noticed an improvement in MEMORY, both with regards to SHORT-TERM and MEDIUM-TERM MEMORY. To put matters into perspective, the memory improvement has been mild, yet still significant; whereas I have experienced no such improvement at all with the other RACETAMS.
Creatine is stored as phosphocreatine, which acts as a high-energy reserve. Phosphocreatine decreases rapidly during brain activity. Supplementing with creatine (2 grams per day for 1 month) increased average brain creatine by 9.7%. It acts as an energy source for the brain to focus on learning tasks, as well as an energy source for storing memories.